Video game film adaptations haven’t had the best track record. They’ve been historically maligned by critics; some justly (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is, in fact, that bad), others unjustly (Mortal Kombat remains a 90s camp classic). Now we have Rampage, based on the classic giant monster arcade game, being marketed as “the best-reviewed video game movie of all time.” But despite this dubious designation, Rampage can barely be called an adaptation. It deviates from and adds so much to its narratively sparse source material that it’s essentially its own beast. Continue reading →

During his heyday, Alfred Hitchcock coined the term “the ice box scene,” which refers to a movie scene whose plot issues become apparent to the audience sometime after the fact. A Quiet Place could be described as the ice box movie – thoroughly watchable in the moment, but logically wanting when given any serious thought. Continue reading →

It’s impossible to get mad at a Guillermo Del Toro movie. Even his misfires, like the forgettable Crimson Peak and generic Mimic have a creative spark to them that seems increasingly rare in modern Hollywood. He’s a man who clearly loves what he does, even managing to put his artistic stamp on prefab properties like Blade II. But The Shape of Water is his vision through and through, for better and for worse. Continue reading →